


Two First Kisses

by acertaindefenseattorney



Series: Prompt responses [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M, minor animal death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 04:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5276831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acertaindefenseattorney/pseuds/acertaindefenseattorney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two first kisses. Most men like Thomas have two.</p><p>One, a second cousin at a first cousin’s wedding, in a pale mauve dress, wearing an imitation of her mother’s hat, her mother’s lace gloves, pressing two fingers to her lips in a blush as her brothers goad and cheer, and her aunt says, <i>give him a kiss, then!</i> </p><p>The other, Samuel Gardner.</p><p>— Prompt response for silentgirlspeaksout on Tumblr: Thomas’s first kiss </p><p>This turned really really sappy and now we know why Thomas remains, well into his thirties, a hopeless romantic. Thanks Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two First Kisses

There are two first kisses. Most men like Thomas have two. 

One, a second cousin at a first cousin’s wedding, in a pale mauve dress, wearing an imitation of her mother’s hat, her mother’s lace gloves, pressing two fingers to her lips in a blush as her brothers goad and cheer, and her aunt says, _give him a kiss, then!_

A day spent hiding beneath the tables together, sharing stolen puddings and playing observation games on the crowd, has made them friends; in that strange way that second cousins can be friends for a wedding, though they’ve never met before, and may not meet for years after. 

Eight and nine years old, respectively, so there is nothing more to it than that; but the wedding-goers are tipsy, and in a wedding mood, and at the end of the day, when the gathered branches of the family congregate outside the town hall, ready to part for another five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, they are more than ready to imagine a new match. 

_Give him a kiss, then, love, so he doesn’t forget you_ , says the aunt. Everyone is watching. 

Thomas Barrow’s cheeks burn. His second cousin, one year older, blushes back, tiptoes toward him, and bows to the pressure, with one quick peck upon the lips.  

The family branches cheer, another cousin slaps him across the shoulder. 

His second cousin is watching him, with her gloved fingers pressed to her lips once more, questioning. 

Years later, in a letter from Bombay, she writes, _Did you know when we were kids? Thing is I think I did the minute I kissed you, at Mims’ wedding. Straightaway I thought, well, this one is not like the others, and make no mistake._   

The other, Samuel Gardner, a year older again, a poacher from a family of poachers, with a lightning hot grin and dirt under his bitten nails. Always asking for Thomas Barrow’s company on his way into Pendleton woods to check the traps; much to the confusion of his sister, of other boys who’d not turn down Margaret Barrow’s company if it were offered.  

 _I’ll come with you, Sam!_ she says, and Thomas feels a cool spark of pride each and every time Sam says, _no, Margaret, you don’t want to do that - it’s dirty work. Thomas can help me._  

It is dirty work. And illegal, too, so they speak quiet and tread lightly even in the deepest of the woods, lest the keeper happen by. Sam’s dog – a little dog, wire-haired and snappy – trots along ahead of them and when he changes direction quickly this way, or that, the boys jog after, and often find nothing but a squirrel chattering in a tree, or a badger’s toilet, but sometimes find a sprung trap, and a frozen, frightened rabbit for Sam to dispatch quickly and string to his stick. 

At one point during the day Sam will, without fail, take a seat at the base of a tree, unfold two soft ginger biscuits from a scarf, pass one to Thomas and eat the other. In Autumn when the undergrowth is thick with ripe blackberries Thomas collects them in his cap and they eat those, too, staining their hands and lips purple.

In later years he’ll to spend _months_ in turmoil, going back and forth, over and over, doubting the feelings of other men. At fourteen, perhaps he simply doesn’t know any better, but Thomas never doubts that Sam — well, Sam is courting him. He buys him little treats and presents them to him in the woods; biscuits, sweets, once a new handkerchief. He holds out his hand to help him across the boggy ground at the edge of the stream, and treads down brambles for him, and beats down nettle patches with a stick before letting him pass. All this, despite the fact that Thomas is every bit as much the country lad he is, perfectly capable of traversing the woodland on his own.   

Even at fourteen, Thomas has sharp eyes, and he thinks to himself; _he’s treating me like he’d treat a girl, because he doesn’t know how else to court anyone at all_. 

One day, beneath a tree, he offers Thomas the last blackberry, and when he declines, responds _no, suppose you’re sweet enough as it is_ , without thinking — and then turns red, as if after months of quiet walks and silences and gifts, he has finally said too much.

And so it is that it is Thomas, not him, in the end, who makes the first move; Thomas Barrow, fourteen, smirking and proud, who reaches over to lay blackberry sticky fingers along Sam Gardner’s jaw, and press their lips together, without but an ounce of fear; and feels him exhale, tremble, and kiss back. 

_You’re so_ ** _daft_** , he says, and Sam grins.

No kiss will ever be as simple again. 

**Author's Note:**

> The wedding story is based on my mum’s story of how she was goaded into kissing her second cousin Alfred at a wedding the first time they met, when they were kids, because they spent the whole day together and everyone was in a matchmaking mood. 
> 
> She realised the second they kissed that he was definitely not like the other boys; and he was, in fact, the first confirmed gay man in the family. Later on he tried to kill himself, sadly, but is fine now, in his late fifties, and married to a nice man.
> 
> (Margaret Barrow was named by todowntononanimpala in their fic The Clockmaker, and has since become pretty damn near canon.)


End file.
